Unless you’re unnaturally excited for the upcoming new Aerosmith album, GOOD Music’s Cruel Summer is 2012’s most anticipated album of the year. Featuring a roster full of hip hop superstars, including Kanye West, Jay Z, Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz, John Legend, Common, and Kid Cudi, hopes were high for Cruel Summer, especially after (the excellent) “Mercy” and “New God Flow” were released as singles.

Late last week, the album leaked, only slightly before its official release date tomorrow, so fans were able to make judgements on the album as a whole, not just on the basis of a few tracks. The consensus: when’s the next Kanye solo album coming out? Cruel Summer isn’t bad, but it doesn’t live up to its combined talent.

Here are five things Cruel Summer does right, and five it does wrong.

1. RIGHT. The production is top-notch, as expected. Kanye worked on every track, but he also brought in a murderer’s row of talent to assist him, including Illmind, Million $ Mano, Twilite Tone, and Dan Black, who contributes on Kid Cudi’s clapping “Creepers,” a late-album highlight.

2. WRONG. In terms of the GOOD Music talent, there’s Kanye West, and then there’s everyone else. With all due respect to Pusha T and 2 Chainz and slightly less respect to Big Sean, ‘Ye raps circles around the rest of his crew, and his lines are consistently the best on the album (despite not living up to his career standards). Take the bombastic “Mercy,” for instance, in which after a murky Big Sean verse and another from Pusha T, who practically hisses out, “I’m bill dropping Ms. Pacman, this pill popping-ass ho,” the original beat drops, everything begins to pulsate and vibrate, then Kanye comes in, with all his bravado, and definitely raps, “I step in Def Jam building like I’m the sh*t/Tell em give me fifty million or I’mma quit.” Not unlike Watch the Throne, Cruel Summer is about how GOOD Music is the greatest and how no one can f*ck with them. Thing is, Kanye’s the only one who you believe.

3. RIGHT. The first half of the album. Beginning with the string plucking at the beginning from the R Kelly-assisted “To the World,” which I kind of love despite the Autotune and resemblance to Watch the Throne‘s “Blast Off” (or maybe that’s why I love it?), up to DJ Khaled and DJ Pharris demanding to “get the Theraflu” at the end of “Cold,”Cruel Summer, while never actually reaching the level of “great,” sounds like the kind of album that will be played in cars for months to come. It’s bombastic, hook-heavy, and contagious, like a top-40 song that you know you shouldn’t like, yet have hidden on your iTunes. That’s not a bad thing. But then…

4. WRONG. The second half of the album. Things fall apart. With few exceptions, one of which I’ll mention below, “Higher” to “I Don’t Like” just…kind of lay there. The verses aren’t as clever, the rapping feels lethargic, and the beats are lazy. It’s as if they speak so much money on the first six tracks that they had cut down on the budget for the final six. Kanye has described Cruel Summer as a “ghetto opera” (like Carmen: A Hip Hopera?), but if that’s true, it’s one without an ending, just a slow ascension into mediocrity, where instead of paying attention, your mind begins to drift to thoughts of Kanye’s next project.

5. RIGHT. An underrated component of any album: how long it is. If it’s too short, it feels minor and incomplete; if it’s too long, it feels bloated and runs the risk of listeners losing interest. Cruel Summer, at 12 tracks over 54 minutes, feels just right — if only the content was better.

Any album where Kanyes rapping is the high point can’t be very good. I applaud Mr. West for writing more of his own lyrics now, but the fact is none of his recent verses hold a candle to his early classics written by Rhymefest, Consequence, or Young Chris. He’s still this generation’s Dr. Dre. Capable of producing great albums by himself, but unable to be a good emcee without generous “help.”

While Dr. Dre is a bit harsh, Rhymefest has a writing credit for Jesus Walks. Kanye has admitted as much. I’ve never looked into some of the other rumors, but it’s not outlandish to say that dude had help writing raps.

Worst review of the album I’ve seen, this album is fucking awesome. I like how the album’s genre varies with songs like Bliss and Creepers. This reviewer obviously doesn’t know good music when they hear it.

Pusha is really great everywhere he pops up. I was hoping his track Exodus 23:1 that Kanye posted on his site would be on Cruel Summer, but not to be. Got to agree with the sentiment though. I think if we hadn’t been exposed and burnt out on how great Mercy and New God Flow are, the album might be more impressive. Like everyone pumped Kanye’s next solo album, Pusha has one in production that Cruel Summer has pumped my interest in.